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Subject: RE: [docbook-apps] Controlling the publishing process - shell scripts, Ant, other tools
Hi, I have been using ant for publishing for some time. Typical usage scenarios in my company are these: - publish documentation to webhelp and pdf as part of the application build - publish documentation as an eclipse infocenter plugin (this involves updating working copy from svn, stopping infocenter, publishing docs, starting infocenter) * What are some advantages an Ant-based publishing system has over a shell script system? Clearly Ant is cross-platform, what else? I do not have that much experience with shell scripts, but ant is quite extensible - you can use extension libraries or write you own. * Is there a typical Ant architecture for large, single-sourced documentation sets? I've got over 30 large documents being published to multiple formats. Would I set up a build.xml file for each document and format permutation and then have a master build.xml file to run them all at once? You could do with one file only. You could write a macro for each output format (http://ant.apache.org/manual/Tasks/macrodef.html) and then call it directly with parameters for each doc. Something like this: <macrodef name="publish-to-pdf"> <atribute name="input-file"/> ... </macrodef> <target name="build-all-doc"> <publish-to-pdf input-file="path-to-doc1"/> <publish-to-pdf input-file="path-to-doc2"/> </target> * The example on Dave Pawson's site (thanks, Dave!) shows web site publishing. Does anyone know of example Ant setups for publishing large manual sets to PDF and online help? I cannot share our build scripts, but our largest document has circa 700 pages (PDF). * Can Ant handle complicated file manipulation like packaging Eclipse help plugins into an Infocenter WAR file? Will I end up having to write shell-script code for an Ant task to execute? Yes, you can create war files directly usány the war task (http://ant.apache.org/manual/Tasks/war.html). Pavel Škopík -----Original Message----- From: Peter Desjardins [mailto:peter.desjardins.us@gmail.com] Sent: Thursday, August 26, 2010 4:56 AM To: DocBook Apps Subject: [docbook-apps] Controlling the publishing process - shell scripts, Ant, other tools Hi. I've been publishing DocBook for a few years and I've always used shell scripts to control the process. This has worked well for me but I'm starting a new publishing system from scratch and I'd like to improve the maintainability and scalability of the process if I can. Although I could do anything I needed to do with my publishing system when it was based on shell scripts, it really wasn't something that could be easily maintained by someone else. I tried to comment and otherwise document my scripts but realistically, it would have been frustrating for someone else to pick through the logic. For my new publishing system, I'm considering using Apache Ant. I see that other people seem happy publishing XML with Ant and the software developers I work with use it for their build process. So I've started experimenting with Ant, starting with the examples at http://www.dpawson.co.uk/docbook/ant.html. It's not coming easily in the first few hours I've spent with it. Here are some of the questions I have. Any input will be very helpful. * What are some advantages an Ant-based publishing system has over a shell script system? Clearly Ant is cross-platform, what else? * Is there a typical Ant architecture for large, single-sourced documentation sets? I've got over 30 large documents being published to multiple formats. Would I set up a build.xml file for each document and format permutation and then have a master build.xml file to run them all at once? * The example on Dave Pawson's site (thanks, Dave!) shows web site publishing. Does anyone know of example Ant setups for publishing large manual sets to PDF and online help? * Can Ant handle complicated file manipulation like packaging Eclipse help plugins into an Infocenter WAR file? Will I end up having to write shell-script code for an Ant task to execute? * What other build control systems should I consider in this situation? I don't think my colleagues would be very excited about GNU make files. I'm not too excited about the idea of a CMS to handle publishing. Anything else? Thanks for your help. Peter Desjardins --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: docbook-apps-unsubscribe@lists.oasis-open.org For additional commands, e-mail: docbook-apps-help@lists.oasis-open.org __________ Informace od ESET NOD32 Antivirus, verze databaze 5397 (20100825) __________ Tuto zpravu proveril ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.cz __________ Informace od ESET NOD32 Antivirus, verze databaze 5397 (20100825) __________ Tuto zpravu proveril ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.cz
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